1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a feed for culturing monogastric animals such as fowl, pigs, rabbits and horses
2. Description of the Prior Art
Heretofore, feeds for culturing monogastric animals essentially contained agricultural and aquatic products, such as corn, soybean meal, fish meal or the like. The production of these agricultural and aquatic products fluctuates from year to year depending upon the weather and other factors influencing the size of harvests and catches, whereby it has been difficult to obtain a stable supply of feed. Accordingly, there have been attempts to use synthetic compounds instead of natural agricultural and aquatic products as part of the feeds. Synthetic feeds should have high nutritive value as protein sources and as calorie sources, and must be harmless to the animals being fed, of course. Currently, methionine and lysine are being used as artificial feeds for monogastric animals, and urea, isobutylidene diurea and biuret are being used for ruminant animals. Among these compounds, isobutylidene diurea is excellent as an artificial feed for ruminant animals because it is gradually decomposed in the first rumen to form ammonia, whereby it can be utilized for the synthesis of microbial protein of the microorganisms inhabiting the rumen. The microbes are digested and absorbed in a digestive organ below the abomasum so as to be effective for growth of the ruminant animals. Since monogastric animals have a different digestive mechanism from ruminant animals, one of ordinary skill would not have considered that isobutylidene diurea might be effective as a feed for monogastric animals.